


First and Last

by zeldadestry



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:23:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"From a certain perspective we all deserve punishment."  Castiel leans forward, rests his elbows on his thighs and steeples his hands.  "I think you should ask yourself who else would suffer from your imprisonment.  In fact, I believe the question you must ask yourself is this: who would suffer most?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	First and Last

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by, and certain elements borrowed from, David Benioff's novel "The 25th Hour" (good movie, too!).

He wakes up for the last time with Bela curled beside him. She sleeps on her left side, always, rolling in on herself, as small as she can be. She's lived with him, and he's taken care of her, since she was only fifteen, which sounds massively fucked up, but not to anyone who knows what her life was like with her family, with her father. He wishes, just once, to wake her with a kiss, with his hand sliding up between her thighs, but part of protecting her is never touching her without her invitation. He uses his voice, instead, says her name, lets himself feel every tender, hungry urge.

She stirs, rolling over to press her naked body against his, smiles even before she opens her eyes. "Dean," she sighs, dragging her nails across his chest. "I'm going to miss you."

 

He says good bye to her on the front stoop of their apartment building. She's wearing sunglasses and he won't meet her eyes, anyway, so it keeps all intensity at bay, the two of them looking in the same direction, not at each other. "I'm surprised, you know," she says. "You didn't ask me to wait."

"Ten years is a long time. You never would have said yes."

"You're probably right. Still, you might have tried. It's not like you to duck a risk."

"I don't see any future."

"None at all or none with me?" He shrugs. Bela slides an arm around his waist and leans against him. "It's enough to make a girl think you don't love her."

He taps her on the ass. "Don't be an idiot."

"It's alright, Dean," she says, as the cab pulls up to the curb, as he helps her get her bag into the trunk. "I always knew, no matter how much I wanted you, I wasn't the one you needed."

 

Outside of Bobby's bar, sirens blare as an ambulance speeds down the street. Dean watches it go, remembers another lifetime ago when he wanted to be an EMT, when the best job he could imagine would have been to help people, save them.

 

"They tracked down Ruby."

"Yeah?" Dean shakes his head and pours himself more of Bobby's best bourbon.

"You just say the word and she won't ever get the chance to fuck over another soul."

Dean tilts his glass back and forth in his hand. Half empty, half full, what the fuck does it matter? "Nah. It's over. Wouldn't change anything about today, about tomorrow, not for me." Ruby was his contact, Ruby supplied the stash and collected the family's cut of the profit every month. Ruby sold him out to save herself when the feds came calling. They wanted names and, too smart to rat out anyone above her in the organization, she informed on everyone who worked out on the streets.

Bobby wants to talk strategy. He gives Dean the names and descriptions of everyone he knows on the inside, everyone he's already contacted, prisoners and guards, to let them know about Dean, that he's like family, and anyone who wants to stay a friend of Bobby's better be good to him. Dean listens closely, even takes notes, but it's for Bobby's sake, not his own. "I hope it's enough, boy. I've done everything I could."

"I know. I appreciate it."

"It's not too late to run, Dean. Jesus, I wish you'd run. You think they're joking when they say someone's too pretty for prison?"

Dean pretends to wipe away a tear. "Aw, Bobby, you think I'm pretty?"

"You call your brother?"

"How many fucking times do I have to tell you? I don't want him to know."

"Yeah? Well, what the hell do you want me to tell him when he comes back here looking for you? Hey, Sammy, how you been? Visiting hours are on Thursday from one to four."

Dean looks up from his glass. "Are they?"

"Yes."

"How do you know that?"

"You dumb shit. I just told you I busted my ass to get you friends up there. And you're not gonna get rid of me this easy."

"You gonna visit?"

"Of course. Every week if that's what you want."

"What I want is for you to stop worrying about me."

"Not in this lifetime. And when you get out, I'll be waiting for you, this place will be waiting for you, and I'm gonna make you my partner in it, because no one else will be lining up to hire a high school dropout with a record."

"Hey, I got my GED."

"Yeah, because Sam wouldn't stop saying that if you didn't need a diploma, neither did he." Bobby's hand grips Dean's wrist. "Christ, you did everything for that kid. Don't you know he knows it? Don't you know how much he loves you?"

Dean just shakes his head.

 

Dean takes the L line over to Manhattan and walks all the way up to Morningside Heights, not because the sky is such a bright blue but simply because he can. He can go anywhere he wants to today. When he reaches Columbia's campus, he sits down at the top of the steps of the philosophy department building and checks his watch. Office hours should be finished soon. A few minutes later, Castiel steps out the front door, talking intently with a girl who's practically drooling on him. Dean waits as they finish their conversation, admiring the girl's long bare legs and vintage Ramones tee. He watches her walk away, and doesn't acknowledge his friend until she's out of sight. "That's one of your students? Hot damn, Cas, I suddenly respect your devotion to higher education. You know she wants you bad, right? Did you see the way she was looking at you?"

Castiel sits down on the steps beside Dean. "We were talking about a paper she's working on, examining Camus' analysis of Nietzsche."

"What does not kill me makes me stronger."

Castiel smiles indulgently, like he always does when Dean tries to surprise him. "Perhaps Nietzsche's best known maxim, in no small part thanks to Kanye West, but gold star for effort."

"Bite me." Dean's forehead furrows. "Have you actually been listening to the radio?"

"A student played the song for me. I think Camus, however, would suit you much better. You should read "The Rebel"."

"Yeah, I'll get right on that."

Castiel picks up half a donut someone dropped on the stairs and begins ripping it into tiny pieces, which he tosses down to the pavement so the pigeons roaming around can easily reach the crumbs. "Have you decided what you will do tomorrow morning?"

"There's nothing to decide. I wake up, I get on the bus, I take a ride to the prison where I'm going to be spending the next decade of my life, if I'm lucky."

"You will survive, Dean."

"Easy for you to say. Not much common ground between the Ivy League and a federal penitentiary."

"Would you rather I did not believe in you?"

"You know what? I don't want to talk about this and I can't believe you, of all people, are asking me about tomorrow."

"Why not?"

"Do you see me as having a choice?"

"Of course."

"And you want me to consider that choice?"

"What friend would not want for his friend to be free?"

"Cas, I know you like to play the too good for this earth game, but even you can't want me to forfeit the bail money."

"That money was a gift for you. It no longer belongs to me. I have no claim on it, nor do I wish to have one."

"You really don't give a shit about the money?"

"No, I don't. I can make myself no clearer."

"Ok, so it's not about the money, but how many fucking times have you given me your 'Thou shalt not make your living off the suffering of others' sermon? I kinda assumed you thought I had this coming."

"From a certain perspective we all deserve punishment." Castiel leans forward, rests his elbows on his thighs and steeples his hands. "I think you should ask yourself who else would suffer from your imprisonment. In fact, I believe the question you must ask yourself is this: who would suffer most?"

"Christ. Are you and Bobby conspiring against me now? All I want at this point is for Sam to just be left out of this, ok? Quit busting my balls."

"You want what is best for Sam."

"Always."

"But you measure that best through your own eyes, not his."

 

After dinner and drinks with Cas, Dean walks south again, walks through a hundred blocks of Manhattan's crowds and noise and lights at night, and catches the F train heading towards Brooklyn. When his building's back in sight he spots a woman crumpled on its steps. He recognizes her by the time he hits the corner and, although he knows nothing good can come of their meeting, he doesn't change direction. "Anna," he says, crossing the street, moving towards her.

"Dean!" She gets to her feet, reaches out towards him in supplication, her hands shaking. "I really need a hit, help me, please."

He stills in front of her and she collapses against him. He holds her up and brings a hand to rest on top of her head. "I don't have anything."

"Please. Please, Dean. I'll, I'll pay you anything, my parents just sent me a check today. I'll," she raises her face, licks her lips, "I'll do anything you want."

He remembers when he first met her, how bright and clear her eyes were. "I'm sorry, Anna."

Her grip on him slackens. "You don't - you're not - you don't have anything for me, do you?"

"No."

"Can you, can you call someone for me? Can you give me a name, a number, anything?"

"You should go home."

"No."

"You should go home to your family." She shakes her head. "Yes."

She steps away from him, gnawing on her lip. "Fuck you," she mutters, and shuffles off towards the park.

He follows behind her, a few steps back. "Come on. Come on! Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"You don't have what I need, so just leave me alone."

He reaches out and grabs her by the upper arm, forces her to face him. "Anna-"

"Stop it!" she cries, spit flying from her mouth and hitting him in the face. He flinches but doesn't move to wipe it off. "Family? Who the hell do you think you are to tell me to go home? You're nothing, Dean, you don't have anybody, you don't care about anyone. Go home? So they can see me? So that they'll know, know what I am?"

He tries to gather her close again but she struggles in his arms, hands striking out at him so weakly, trying once to kick his shins and nearly losing her balance. "Calm down," he orders. "Just calm down and I swear I'll let you go."

She stills and he slowly releases her. "You were like an angel to me," she says, staring at the sidewalk underneath their feet, "when this started." She whimpers. "Do you know why they call it the white horse?"

"No."

"I do. I know all the secrets now. It taught me everything. I know the way the world will end."

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard your doomsday routine before. Not with a bang but a whimper, right?"

"You're so much smarter than you pretend. That's what makes you so bad. You could have been good. You tried to be, you did, but this is all you are now." She begins to walk towards the park again, and he falls in beside her. "This is all I am. We're the same, exactly the same."

"Oh, yeah, and how's that?"

"Prisoners," she hisses. She hums to herself for the next block and a half and he tries to figure out the song. When they reach the playground on the edge of the park she sits down on the merry go round and sighs. "Go away, Dean."

"I'm not leaving you alone."

"I'm never alone," she says, tilting her head to the side, like she always does when the voices start talking to her. "They say you can go now. You have to go now. Go home and dream of Sam."

"What?" He never said anything, ever, and Sam was gone long before he met Anna. "What the hell did you just say?"

She jerks out of her reverie and stares him straight in the face. "Go home, Dean. When you go home, I go home."

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I know it doesn't mean anything, to say it, but I am. I am."

"I know. I know you are. Good bye, Dean."

He starts to walk away but swivels around almost immediately, only to find the playground empty. "Anna!" He looks for her, calls out for her again, but she's gone, she's vanished. If he were a superstitious man he might have wondered if he'd been talking to a ghost. "Damn it," he finally says, after fifteen minutes of searching. "I give up." It doesn't matter what Bobby said today, what Castiel said, what anyone told him in the daylight. It's midnight and he knows he deserves where he's going. He deserves all of it.

 

In the back of his closet, folded up at the bottom of a paper bag, is a ragged black sweatshirt Sam left behind. Before he lies down, Dean puts it on. He gets in bed and curls up on his side, pulls the hood up over his head, and sticks his hands deep into the pockets.

When Dean recounts his life to himself, he does it through Sam. Sam was only a baby when their mother was murdered. From the day of their mother's funeral onward, their father searched for the man responsible. When Sam was ten, their father discovered that the man he believed to be their mother's killer had long ago hung himself in his cell while awaiting trial on a different charge. Faced with the impossibility of completing his long-sought vengeance, he began to drink more. When Sam was eleven, before their money ran out, Dean started working with Ruby. He sold pot, at first, a lot of it, to the kids at his high school. When Sam was twelve, Dean dropped out of school. When Sam was fourteen, their father disappeared for a few months. Dean told Ruby he needed to make more money, and she began supplying him with heroin.

Sam was seventeen when their dad died. He stayed in Dean's room that night. They slept side by side from then on, until the night before Sam left.

Shortly before Sam's eighteenth birthday they got matching tattoos, black Ws in the center of their left forearms.

When Sam graduated from high school, Bobby closed the bar for business and held a party for him and his friends. Dean spent most of it in a corner booth, nursing a beer and watching Sam laugh with his buddies and dance with the girls. It was like a scene out of someone else's life, certainly nothing Dean had ever had, and he believed then that whatever he'd done for Sam had been worth it.

Much later that night they sat together on the couch in their living room, watching "The Crow". Sam was sitting close and, when he reached for Dean's arm, Dean didn't shake him off. Sam traced his fingertips over Dean's tattoo. "Play with your own," Dean scowled.

"I like yours better," Sam said, and covered it with his hand, like it was something he never wanted anyone else to be able to touch or see. "Hey, I've been thinking - now that I've finished school, I can get a job. And you can do something new, too, yeah, because we'll both be bringing money home?"

"Living in the city's expensive."

"That's the other thing I've been thinking about. Now that Dad's gone there's nothing holding us here. We can go someplace new, someplace we've never been before." Dean shoved up off the couch, but Sam's grip on his arm reeled him back down. "We can start a whole new life. Together."

"Together?" It wasn't the word that terrified him, it was how Sam said it, the look in his eyes.

"Yeah. Come on, Dean, you know that I - I mean, you know how I -" He flushed. "Don't make me say it."

"No."

"What?"

"No." Dean forcibly removed Sam's hand from his arm and stood, drawing himself up tall as he could, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he glared down at Sam. "We can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not what I want." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, to say the words that would make it true: it's not what I want for you, you deserve a better life than you could ever have with me. He began to walk down the hallway to the bathroom.

"Dean, please."

He shouldn't have looked back. Sammy's face was, shit, he can still see the sadness in it now, and that told him he was right, right to turn away, because if he hadn't done it then he never would have been able to do it later, and Sam would have been trapped, trapped for the rest of his life.

After he showered and brushed his teeth that night, he went into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. As long as they'd lived in that apartment, each had their own room, he'd never closed his door before. He'd always left it half open, in case Sam needed him for anything.

Around three in the morning, Sam knocked lightly at the wood separating them. Dean got out of bed and opened the door, though he knew he shouldn't. "What?" he said, avoiding Sam's eyes.

"I can't sleep."

"Not my problem."

"I know you're pissed about what happened tonight."

"What happened? No. I'm pissed about what you said."

"And I won't ever ask for that again, I promise! But, Dean, sharing the bed? It's got nothing, nothing, to do with that, I swear to you. It's just, it's comfort, ok? It's the only way I can sleep. I know I fucked up, but don't - please don't stop being my friend."

Anger surged through Dean. He did everything he could for Sam, and here they were and it wasn't enough. He'd failed. "Go away." He closed the door in his brother's face.

In the morning, when he opened the door, Sam was curled up on the floor in front of the frame, a pillow under his head and a blanket over his body. Dean poked him with his toes until Sam grunted and opened his eyes. "Did you - did you sleep on the floor?"

"What does it look like?"

"Like a fucking - like a dog, Sammy? That's pathetic." He stepped over Sam's body and went into the kitchen to grab an energy drink from the fridge. Sam followed, the blanket wrapped around him. "I don't have time for this shit," Dean said, grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter and heading towards their front door. "I have to get to work."

"Oh, yeah, time to sell smack, right? The early dealer catches the most junkies?"

"Shut up."

"I can't believe I ever listened to you. You're the one who's pathetic." Dean's hand clenched around his keys. Sam hovered, just behind him, and Dean could hear him breathing, the little huff on each exhale that proved he was hurting, too. "I shouldn't have - I know you only started because you had to, to take care of - of everything."

Dean would have rather had Sam hate him for the rest of their lives, look down on him as a fuck-up and a loser, than carry guilt. "I do it because I'm good at it. It's got nothing to do with you." Such a lie, such a fucking lie, that he had to say it again, because any statement that blatantly false revealed the truth. "None of this has anything to do with you. Nothing I do has anything to do with you."

"Dean, I'm sorry."

"I'm so fucking sick of you saying that."

"Sor-"

"Finish that thought and I'll kill you."

Sam moved out that day and left for California four days later and, although it was only a week after that when Bela first approached him in a club, Dean's been alone ever since.

 

Dean wakes up around five, grateful that he was able to sleep at all, even if only for an hour or two. He gets out of bed and puts his boots on. Outside, the city is as still as it ever gets, as quiet. It must have rained earlier, because the asphalt is glossy and wet. He walks up to Grand Army Plaza, stands for a while in front of the arch, staring into space, and then continues on into the park. By the time he heads back, the sky is beginning to lighten.

He knows as soon as he opens the door, even before he hears Sammy say his name. He sags against the doorframe, covers his eyes. "Are you ok?" Sam says, patting his hands all over Dean's body. "Are you hurt?" He shakes his head and submits to Sam's hug, a hold so tight it leaves him breathless. Sam keeps an arm around him and steers him into the living room. "I brought pie," he says, pointing to a pink bakery box on the table.

Dean snorts and pulls away, putting on his best "Congratulations, you're a freaking moron!" face. "Yeah, great, that solves everything."

"Wow, you've gotten cynical. What happened to the guy who taught me "when life gets vicious, pie's still delicious!"?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Ok, fine, no pie for breakfast. There're bruises under your eyes. Did you sleep at all?"

"Not much."

"You look like you can barely keep yourself standing."

"Nah, I'm good."

Sam takes off his coat and sweatshirt, then sits down to unlace his boots. "Well, I drove all night and I'm beat. Why don't we lie down for a while?"

Dean takes a seat at the table, kitty-corner from Sam. "You look -"

"What?"

"Older. Grown up."

Sam kicks off his boots and turns his attention to Dean. "You look the same."

That's because the way you look at me is still the same, Dean thinks. Your eyes are soft and you don't see the edges. "You need to lie down?"

Sam tugs on the front of his old sweatshirt, smug because Dean wearing it says everything. "I think we should."

Dean takes off his shoes and follows Sam to the bed they used to share. They lie down on their backs and stare up together at the shadows on the ceiling. Dean clears his throat. "I know why you're here."

"Do you?"

"You don't need me, Sammy. You've done great on your own. You've got a good life."

"How would you know that? Did you read the letters I sent to Bobby?"

"Sometimes."

"I thought you might. I sent them to Bobby, but I wrote them for you."

Dean smirks. "I'm easy to walk away from, but not so easy to forget, right?"

"Listen to me. The only reason I was ok was because I knew that, whatever happened, I could always come back to you, I could always come home." Sam takes a deep breath. "Look, I don't want - I'm not asking you to leave with me, ok? But I am asking you to leave."

"To run."

"To escape, yeah."

"I don't know."

"We've got some time."

"Not much."

"We've got enough for this."

"For what?"

"For you to rest, Dean, just rest."

He doesn't fall asleep, not exactly, but does drift into some loose semi-consciousness, where all time seems to have collapsed on itself, where there isn't any moment except this one, no movement in the world besides Sam's eyes flickering over every inch of Dean's slumped frame. Eventually Dean shifts, moves onto his side so he's facing Sam, and pulls up his sleeves, exposing his tattoo. Without hesitating, like the years between have dissolved, Sam drags his finger up and down its lines.

 

"Are you kidding me, Sammy? Is that a freakin hybrid?"

"I knew you'd hate it."

"So you bought it to torture me?"

"I bought it three years ago because it's better for the environment."

"Hippie."

"Yeah, yeah, get it all out now, because we're gonna have to ditch it as soon as we can."

"We should take the plates off when we do."

"Yeah."

"I'm so picking our next ride."

"I know." Sam holds his hand out for the keys Dean has already taken from him. Dean scowls. "So you still want first shift?"

"Of course I do. You drive like an old man." Dean stops in front of the driver's door. It doesn't matter, not at all, but he wonders. "So who called you?"

"I said I wouldn't tell."

"Did you swear not to tell?"

"Promise to keep a secret from you? No."

Dean looks over his shoulder for a moment, just long enough to catch Sam's grin. "Was it Bobby or Castiel?"

"Neither, actually."

"Then who?"

"It was Bela."

"Bela?"

"Yeah, she called me a few days ago." Sam takes a step forward towards Dean.

"And what the hell did she say?"

Sam's standing so close that Dean can feel warm breath tickle the nape of his neck. "She asked me a question."

"Yeah?" Dean's brain isn't working anymore. He's facing the sun and all he can think is that Sam's presence behind him is brighter. Sam's left hand curves around the point of Dean's hipbone. Dean leans back, just the little bit of movement he needs to rest his body against Sam's. "What question?"

"She asked me if I wanted to take back what was mine."

Dean takes Sam's right hand in his own and draws it up to his mouth. "Your answer?" he murmurs, brushing his lips back and forth over Sam's knuckles.

Sam smoothes his left hand over Dean's torso, reaches up to press the heel of his palm to Dean's sternum. Dean's heart beats faster under the touch. "Hell, yes."


End file.
